


you'll fake it if you have to

by spotters_guide



Series: Sheriff McCall [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pathological Lying, Platonic Touching, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, all the p's basically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotters_guide/pseuds/spotters_guide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Scott tries to pinpoint it, he's almost certain he can trace the genesis of everything going wrong to the night he made the mistake of telling Stiles about the call his mom got about the dead body in the woods.</p><p>Or at the very least, the moment Stiles had a panic attack in the empty chemistry lab and started sprouting claws.<br/>~<br/>A Teen Wolf Role Reversal AU, where Scott's mom is the Sheriff of Beacon Hills and Stiles' dad is a nurse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you'll fake it if you have to

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post [here](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/post/42749549205/imakegoodlifechoices-said-or-it-could-be-an-au).

“Scott.” His mom says, and it’s exactly the kind of no-nonsense voice that Scott is pretty sure makes hardened criminals cry but he’s got a little bit more experience with it so all he does is wince and duck his head to avoid looking her in the eye. “Where. Is. Stiles.”  
  
“Home?” Scott tries weakly, risking a glance back up only to recoil at her thunderous expression and huddle down further in his hoodie like it can actually protect him.  
  
Scott has never been able to lie with much success, not like Stiles who had such a problem with lying after his mom died that Mr. Stilinski had made Stiles start going to another psychologist on top of the one he already saw for his ADHD, and lying to his mom is something that even Stiles didn’t try to do very much back then so Scott knows that he hasn’t got a chance. “Scott.” His mom says flatly, and Scott caves.  
  
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably somewhere nearby?” She’s glaring pretty hotly at him and starts to open her mouth to call him on bullshit but, “it’s the truth, mom, I don’t know, the dogs separated us!”  
  
She purses his lips for a moment as she regards him before glancing around the clearing and shouting “Stiles? Stiles come out here!” like she actually thinks that would ever work and then sighs irritably and holds out her hand. Scott stares blankly down at her open palm and wonders if she plans to walk him home holding hands with him or something. “Your _phone_ , Scott.” His mom clarifies when the silence starts to get uncomfortable enough that one of her deputies shifts his weight anxiously from one foot to another.  
  
“Oh.” Scott says vaguely, and fishes it out of his pockets, dropping it once to the forest floor before he manages to finally hand it over.  
  
His mom puts it on speakerphone and so Scott gets to hear when it goes straight to voicemail and Stiles recorded message starts to play: “Dude. I totally knew you would cave. Weak man. Tell your mom I’m heading home on my own; if I get dropped off in a police cruiser one more time the neighbors are gonna start walking on opposite sides of the street when they see me. Oh, and if the sheriff is listening to this too… you look great tonight Ms. McCall, totally, very authoritative. See you at school tomorrow dude!”  
  
“Um.” Scott says.  
  
His mom scrubs a hand tiredly over her face and gives him back his phone. “Some days I really regret that when you brought Stiles home with you for the first time I didn’t shut the door on his face.”  
  
Scott nods and gives her what Stiles has assured him is an endearing look. “But only some days, right?”  
  
“Yes.” She says grudgingly, and then clamps a firm, icy hand against the nape of his neck and starts steering him out of the clearing, tossing over her shoulder at the deputy holding the dogs’ leads, “I’m taking this delinquent home. Keep up the search and notify me if you find something.” She doesn’t let off on her grip at all until she’s shoving him in the back of the cruiser, amidst his varied protests.  
  
“C’mon mom, is this really necessary, it’s not like I did anything  _illegal_ mom, I don’t know what kind of creeps have been back here, why does it smell like— ooh, a crossword book!” Scott says, diving for the floorboard and coming back up with a book half-filled with Stiles’ tight, quick writing. He flips idly through it as she climbs in the front seat and starts up the car. “Huh.” He says. “How often do you have Stiles back here?”  
  
His mom just gives him a sour, flat look in the rearview mirror that speaks volumes.  
  
Scott doesn’t talk for the rest of the trip home. He falls face first into bed and is out almost instantly, all thoughts of his and Stiles’ midnight jaunt through the woods forgotten.

* * *

Stiles meets Scott in front of the school the next day all barely muted excitement and tightly coiled limbs, but then, that’s Stiles on pretty much any day. “Dude you’ll never guess what happened last night - I found the body!” He says, throwing his arms out to emphasize and barely managing to avoid hitting Lydia Martin square in the face as she passes. “Sorry!” He shouts after her, but Lydia doesn’t even spare him a scornful look Stiles is so below her notice, and—- wait.  
  
“You what.” Scott says, voice small and panicked. “Your voicemail said you were going home!”

Stiles gives him a really pitying look. “Yeah, you really thought I was just going to pass up the chance to see a dead body in the woods. I _lied_ Scott.”  
  
Scott frowns. “I thought you were getting better about that.”  
  
“What.” Stiles makes a face, and then a worse one when he figures out what Scott is talking about. “Oh come on, this is totally not a therapist thing, okay Scott. This is a your mom is spoiling our fun thing. Totally different.”

“I still don’t see what’s so fun about seeing a dead body.” Scott tells him for just about the millionth time since Stiles told him that they were going to do it in the first place. He’s willing to tentatively accept Stiles’ explanation about the lie because after two years of therapy Scott more or less trusts Stiles to know what is or isn’t a therapy thing.  
  
“That’s because you didn’t get to see the dead body Scott.” Stiles tells him simply.

“But you did?”  
  
Stiles nods, a quick bobbing motion like a bobblehead with a broken spring. “Yes, keep up, but possibly even more importantly, I was bit by a wolf last night.”

“YOU WHAT.” Scott says loudly enough that most of the kids mingling by the school entrance turn to look at them, Jackson throwing a sneer in their direction and Danny darting one of his vaguely concerned expressions that he’s had reserved for the two of them ever since middle school and a conversation that Stiles had with him that he still won’t tell Scott about, before pulling Jackson away and into the building.

The first bell rings a moment later and everyone else starts to head inside as well, because nobody cares enough about either of them to risk being late to class.

Stiles nods again, followed by a shrug, and pulls up the side of his shirt to show Scott the large bandage taped across his ribs with a Watchmen smiley face drawn on it; which tells Scott that Stiles bandaged that up himself, probably to avoid worrying his dad, which is Stiles’ primary driving force for most of the things he does when he’s not doing stupid shit like looking for half a dead body in the woods.

He pulls his shirt back down and says, “except I looked it up and there totally haven’t been any wolves in California in, like, fifty years, so I was probably bitten by a werewolf,” and darts up the school steps and into the building just as the warning bell rings.

“WHAT.” Scott shouts after him, but Stiles is already gone. “ _What_.”

Scott is late to homeroom.  
  
X

Scott really wants to stand awkwardly in the hallway and watch the new girl talk to Lydia and Jackson, but the moment that Stiles is out of class he is grabbing Scott by the arm and dragging him into _another_ class, an empty one, and there really isn’t much that Scott can do to stop him. It’s funny though, because he doesn’t remember Stiles being this strong. He thinks he might actually have bruises on his arm now.  
  
“Scott.” Stiles said, looking at him deadly serious, which is spoiled entirely when he follows that with, “I really do think I might have been bit by a werewolf.”  
  
“Ha.” Scott says. Because the joke wasn’t actually funny the first time.  
  
Stiles rolls his eyes and pushes Scott up against the closed classroom door when he tries to step away, and since those doors all open into the classrooms and Stiles is still suddenly and unnervingly strong in ways that make Scott silently despair of his chances of making the first line on lacrosse this year after all if Stiles who never works out ever and only really joined lacrosse in the first place because his dad thought all the suicide runs would be good for his excess energy, Scott is effectively trapped.  
  
Scott doesn’t exactly _whine_ at Stiles but it’s a near thing, hands wrapped around both of Stiles’ wrists and trying to pull him off. He doesn’t understand why Stiles is manhandling him, this isn’t something they do.  “Stiles, come on, can we do this later? Your joke’s not actually funny and I was maybe going to try talking to that new girl—”

The light streaming in from the classroom’s open windows catches Stiles’ eyes weird and they look almost golden as he growls at Scott, which is something else that Stiles has never done before. Scott wonders if maybe Stiles’ bite got infected or something and he’s sick now. Maybe that’s why he’s acting so weird. “I’m not joking, Scott.” Stiles says lowly. He stiffens a little, fingers flexing against Scott’s chest before shaking his head and taking a step back, letting him go.   
  
His shoulders slump and Scott notices the bruises under his eyes that attest to the fact that Stiles spent all of last night finding dead bodies and getting bit by some kind of wild animal. Scott puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and squeezes.  
  
Stiles shoots him a flickering sort of smile that Scott knows is mainly meant to comfort _him_ because Stiles uses it on his dad all the time, like when he fell off the McCall roof the first time he tried to ambush Scott upside down and broke his arm in two places and he just wouldn’t stop smiling at his dad as he set a temporary splint until they could get to the hospital (sometimes Scott wonders if Stiles’ dad somehow knew what kind of kid he was going to get when he was older and chose a career to match but a psychic Mr. Stilinski is a concept far too terrifying to contemplate for long). He takes a deep breath in, lets it out, and then continues talking. “I mean, I was joking before, but I’m not anymore, okay? O _kay_?” Stiles says again, sounding small and unsure.  
  
“Okay…” Scott says slowly, not taking his hand up from Stile’s shoulder and pushing Allison Argent completely out of his head for now. Stiles is more important. Making Stiles not sound like that anymore is more important. “So tell me why you suddenly think that a werewolf really did bite you last night, then.”  
  
Stiles’ face shuffles quickly through about a dozen expressions before settling on pensive.  He says, “I heard Coach Finstock talking himself through his plans for lacrosse tryouts today while I was in class—which, dude, he’s putting you in as goalie for target practice so make sure you wear your helmet.”  
  
“So Coach was talking to himself a little loud. I don’t see what that has to do with werewolves.” Scott says. He will definitely be wearing his helmet today after school, then. Not that you’re even allowed out onto the field without proper equipment on, but maybe he’ll take a Tylenol or two before practice to try and head off the inevitable pain. It really does sound like something Coach would do. He’s not very nice, but he’s a very good coach so people mostly overlook it when he says cruel things to the students and runs them until they puke.  
  
Stiles is looking pretty pale, and a glimpse down confirms that his hands are flexing at his side like a compulsion. He doesn’t even seem to be aware of it happening. Stiles licks his bottom lip and hesitates with his mouth hanging half open, small abortive little breaths before he finally says, “that’s just it, Scott, _you don’t see_ , because the thing is I wasn’t in Economics when I heard him.” He lets that little pebble of information sink to the bottom of Scott’s stomach before tossing in another: “I was in history.”  
  
Which was in a classroom halfway across the school building from either Finstock’s office, or his regular classroom, so no matter which one he’d happened to have been in when Stiles overheard him the simple fact of the matter was that _Stiles shouldn’t have been able to_. “Oh.” Scott says, and he’s probably almost as pale as Stiles now. “Oh crap.”  
  
Stiles bites at his bottom lip until it bleeds.  
  
(And then freaks out so badly when he licks his lip clean a second later and there’s no cut to be found - and there has to be, there was blood, there has to be a cut, Scott, what the fuck - that they’re both late to lacrosse practice.)

X  
  
Scott still has to be goalie. He gets hit in the head seven times and Stiles never actually steps foot out onto the field; sits on the bench and breathes quietly into a paper bag while Danny sits next to him with that same look of vague concern from that morning and rubs his back.  
  
Allison is in the stands to see every single time he gets knocked on his ass.   
  
Scott is never going to get to talk to her.

Stiles is feeling better by the end of practice and up to walking home instead of calling Scott’s mom to come pick them up during her patrol. Apparently Danny’s touch is magical or something, or maybe Stiles just really doesn’t want to go into the back of the cruiser again, Scott doesn’t know. What he does know is that when Scott finally drags himself out of the locker room at the end of practice, sore and limping because Jackson is seriously an asshole, seriously, he sees Danny off to the side of the crowd of onlookers with Stiles and trying to talk to him.  
  
There’s a crumpled brown paper bag at their feet and Scott momentarily considers telling them they’re littering but he doesn’t actually care and Stiles pulls away from Danny as soon as he sees Scott, walking away from him with Danny still talking and with a low muttered, “oh my god, come on,” grabs Scott by the arm and drags him off the field.  
  
Scott follows behind him without fuss because he already has _enough_ bruises today, thank you. And because Stiles still looks sort of pinched and unhappy, and that makes Scott feel pinched an unhappy too.  
  
Stiles decides to cut through the woods. Scott wants to know if that’s such a good idea after what happened the last time they were in the woods. Stiles pulls a long face. “I want to show you the body.” He says firmly.  
  
“What, no, Stiles. I don’t want to see a dead body!” Scott tries to pull away but it’s pretty pointless. At least Stiles has graduated to holding Scott’s hand now instead of his arm. It makes him feel a little bit like they’re back in second grade and the buddy system, but if they’re really going to find a dead body in the woods after Stiles apparently got bit by a werewolf, Scott thinks he might like the buddy system.  
  
“You wanted to see it last night.” Stiles is pouting. Scott can’t actually see his face, because Stiles is at least three steps ahead of him, stretching their arms out between them but never enough for it to be a trial to keep hold of one another, but he knows with absolute certainty that Stiles is pouting now.  
  
“I actually didn’t.” Scott says honestly, putting on a little burst of speed to catch up with Stiles so he can bump their shoulders together companionably. “But you really wanted to see it and I didn’t want you to be out there alone so.”  
  
Stiles stops so suddenly that Scott almost trips to the ground in his effort to match it, and it’s only Stiles’ steady grip on his hand that keeps him from face planting in the dirt. He waits just long enough for Scott to be reasonably sure that he’s got his balance back before reeling Scott in for a tight, quick hug and then releasing him again.  
  
“What was that for?” Scott asks bemusedly.  
  
Stiles shrugs and turns his face away. The back of his neck flushes sort of pink and he mumbles a soft, “for being you, stupid,” and then starts dragging Scott through the trees again. They walk the rest of the way without talking and this time when Stiles abruptly stops, Scott runs straight into his back with a startled exhalation.  
  
“Why did we stop this time?” Scott asks, resting his chin on Stiles shoulder. “Are you gonna hug me again?”  
  
Stiles wheels around and punches him in the shoulder, which, _ow_.   
  
“ _Ow_.” Scott says. Tells him, “not all of us got super strength werewolf powers, okay, and I think I have enough bruises for today without you adding to them.”  
  
“The body’s not here.” Stiles says.  
  
“What.”  
  
Stiles spreads his arms wide to gesture at the clearing they’re stopped in, and then point at one particular spot on the forest floor that doesn’t look any different from any other spots in the clearing. “ _That_ is where the body should be. It’s not there anymore. Somebody moved it.” He explains, sounding very put out.  
  
Scott stares very hard at the spot that Stiles has indicated but it still just looks like any old spot on the ground.  And even though he never really wanted to see the dead body in the first place, it’s still sort of a let down. Maybe if there was a plaque there that read ‘here there used to be half a dead chick’… he pulls his gaze away from the spot and shrugs at Stiles. “I don’t know, maybe mom found it after you did last night and it’s at the morgue with the rest of her body.”  
  
“Or maybe the killer moved it to hide the evidence.” Stiles says darkly and kicks at the ground. He stuffs his hands in his pockets only to pull them back out a second later and make a desperate grab for Scott’s hand, which Scott gives to him without any fuss.  
  
He wants to make a joke about them going steady, there’s so much hand holding going on, but just as he opens his mouth to do it a man in a black leather jacket walks out from the woods towards them, and when his gaze meets Stiles’, Stiles tightens his grip on Scott’s hand so much it hurts. Scott just squeezes right back though because this guys is staring at them like they are quite possibly the worst thing in the entire world and there isn’t any reason he should be.  
  
“What are you doing here?” The guy asks, but before either of them can answer him he adds, “this is private property.”  
  
Stiles glares at him so fiercely, the lines of his body so tense, that Scott is reminded of a dog bristling. “It’s actually not.” Stiles tells the guy, and Scott’s not so sure about this challenging a man who looks like he could break them in half when they’re alone in the middle of the woods, but Stiles is extra strong now and can hear really good and stuff so maybe they’ll be okay.   
  
But just in case, Scott surreptitiously slips that hand that Stiles hasn’t laid claim to into his jacket pocket and palms his phone. The sheriff _is_ on his speed dial, after all.   
  
And Stiles is still backtalking the guy who could very possibly be the killer they were just talking about. “It _used_ to be private property, but after the Hale fire the surviving Hales left town they let the property taxes expire on their land so this is all county property now.” He says, and Scott sometimes wonders why Stiles ever bothers to learn this stuff anyway.  
  
The guy is giving them a pretty murderous look now, which is impressive because Scott had thought the guy couldn’t look any more unhappy with them than when he had first walked up. Clearly Scott was wrong. Stiles just meets his glare head on.  
  
Together they have a bit of a stare off until Scott starts to get really uncomfortable with the silence and suddenly, without any real prompting the man scowls at them with his eyebrows and turns on his heel to storm off through the trees like a diva. At least, that’s how Stiles describes it.  
  
“Dude.” Scott says when he’s absolutely sure that the man is well and truly gone and isn’t gonna, like, jump out of the trees and bite them if they talk about him. “What the hell just happened?”  
  
“That was Derek Hale.” Stiles says faintly, like he only just realized that himself, and he’s still staring at the point where Derek - _Hale_ , what, shit, _Stiles_ \- disappeared from their view. “Huh. Wonder what he’s doing back in town.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can all follow me on my [tumblr](http://spotters-guide.tumblr.com) for sneak peaks at this and other fic.


End file.
